501(c)(4) Civic Leagues and Social Welfare Organizations
"To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination."
Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination". National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts, and litigation strategies developed by its legal team.[7] The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development.[8] Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people, referring to those with some African ancestry.[9]
The NAACP bestows annual awards on African Americans in three categories: Image Awards are for achievements in the arts and media, Theatre Awards are for achievements in theatre and stage, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievements of any kind. Its headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland.[10]
Organization
The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, with additional regional offices in New York, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Colorado, and California.[11] Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.
In the U.S., the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board led by a chairperson. The board elects one person as the president and one as the chief executive officer for the organization. Julian Bond, civil rights movement activist and former Georgia State Senator, was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by healthcare administrator Roslyn Brock.[12] For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was effectively led by its executive secretary, who acted as chief operating officer. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White, who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were much more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years.[13]
The organization has never had a woman president, except on a temporary basis, and there have been calls to name one.Lorraine C. Miller served as interim president after Benjamin Jealous stepped down. Maya Wiley was rumored to be in line for the position in 2013, but Cornell William Brooks was selected.[14][15]
Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the "Branch and Field Services" department and the "Youth and College" department. The "Legal" department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C., bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state, and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education.[16]
As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members.[17]
The NAACP's non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress, which has served as the organization's official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACP's history from the time of its founding until 2003.[18] In 2011, the NAACP teamed with the digital repository ProQuest to digitize and host online the earlier portion of its archives, through 1972 – nearly two million pages of documents, from the national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country, which offer first-hand insight into the organization's work related to such crucial issues as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in all its aspects (in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing).[19][20]
National President, , Boston
Moorfield Storey
Chairman of the Executive Committee,
William English Walling
Treasurer, a prominent New York Republican
John E. Milholland
Disbursing Treasurer,
Oswald Garrison Villard
Executive Secretary,
Frances Blascoer
Director of Publicity and Research, .
W. E. B. Du Bois
– honoring African-American achievements in film, television, music, and literature
NAACP Image Awards
– honoring African-American achievements in theatre productions
NAACP Theatre Awards
– honoring general African-American achievements
Spingarn Medal
Dayton (OH) NAACP President Derrick L. Foward Receives Thalheimer Award for Programs in Atlantic City, New Jersey in July 2022Dayton (OH) NAACP President Derrick L. Foward Receives Thalheimer Award for Publications in Atlantic City, New Jersey in July 2022Thalheimer Award – for achievements by NAACP branches and chapters
Montague Cobb Award – honoring African-American achievements in the field of health
Nathaniel Jones Award for Public Service – first awarded to public servants in 2018
Foot Soldier In the Sands Award – awarded to attorneys who have contributed legal expertise to the NAACP on a pro bono basis
Juanita Jackson Mitchell Award for Legal Activism – awarded to a NAACP unit for "exemplary legal redress committee activities"
William Robert Ming Advocacy Award – awarded to lawyers who exemplify personal and financial sacrifice for human equality
NAACP attorney
Althea T. L. Simmons
Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
Chicago Better Housing Association
, official magazine
The Crisis
National Independent Political League
NAACP New Orleans Branch
NAACP Theatre Award – President's Award
Niagara Movement
Racial integration
Alexander, Shawn Leigh. An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
Berg, Manfred. The Ticket to Freedom: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration. Univ. Press of Florida, 2007.
Browne-Marshall, Gloria J. The Voting Rights War: The NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Bynum, Thomas L. NAACP: Youth and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1936–1965. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2013.
Carle, Susan D. Defining the Struggle: National Racial Justice Organizing, 1880–1915 (Oxford UP, 2013). 404pp. Focus on NAACP.
Dalfiume, Richard. "The 'Forgotten Years' of the Negro Revolution". 55, 1 (June 1968): 99–100. doi:10.2307/1894253.
